


Destiny

by Sanalith



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-21
Updated: 2012-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-02 08:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanalith/pseuds/Sanalith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akira contemplates the loves of his life</p>
            </blockquote>





	Destiny

I’ve loved very little in my life. When I find someone or something important to me, I love with all that I am and all that I have, but very little has touched my heart in that way.  I’m the type of person that doesn’t make random friends. I have acquaintances, I have teammates and training partners, and I have those whom I would die for. Anything in between simply does not exist for me.  
  
  
I love my mother. She may not perfectly understand why it is that I do what I do with my life, but she has always  
supported me. All she has ever wanted is for me to be happy, and she’s done whatever it took to make that happen. When I was sick and still demanded to go to a game, she made me take my medicine with me and procured my solemn word that I would take breaks if I needed, but she let me go. When I told her I would be gone for sometimes weeks at a time during out-of-town games, she smiled sadly, told me to call often, and helped me pack. And when I occasionally needed to break down to someone, she held me close and allowed me to choke out whatever I needed, and then she never mentioned it again. My mother, who loves both my father and I more than life, yet who also understood that she must always come second to our obsession, is truly a saint, and I love her for it.  
  
  
I love my father. From the age of two, I sat at his knee and watched him play Go. The black and white shale stones fascinated me from the first day that I saw them. I didn’t understand their true meaning in the beginning, but the patterns and shapes they made pulled at my heartstrings in a way I couldn’t imagine anything else doing, and I couldn’t stop watching him. From my infancy he included me in his life. While most children ran away from what their parents wanted them to do, I reveled in it. I studied with men and women more than double my age, and my father made sure that I was granted the same amount of respect and attention as any other pro. My father never treated me like a child when I was one, nor did he treat me like an equal when I wasn’t. When we played, I received no special treatment because I was his son, and his words of praise were few and far between, but I hungered for them like normal men hunger for bread and thirst for water. Any sign of pride at my skills, any hint of pleasure at my progress, and I was in heaven for weeks on end. My father shared his passion with me, helped me make it my own, and gave my life so much meaning, and I love him for it.  
  
  
I love Go. It has been my entire life for over twenty years. For so long, nothing else mattered more to me than the placement of the stones and the thrill of the chase. Building a universe in black and white, making the cosmos coalesce and form with my own hands, is a rush nothing has ever been able to top. Since before I can remember, all I have ever wanted is to follow in my father’s footsteps, continue the Touya dynasty, and make him proud. Go is magic. It is a game full of life and beauty, and more than anything I want to help spread that beauty to the rest of the world. I want all children to understand the passion I felt growing up. When I play, I am transported to a place beyond myself, and there is nothing there but black and white perfection. Go gave me a purpose in life, and for that, I love it.  
  
  
For many years, my love for my mother, my father, and Go filled me. I needed nothing else in life. I was totally and completely content. But things change over time, and eventually, I reached a point in my life when that simply wasn’t enough anymore. I was in sixth grade, and, for no reason that I can yet explain, I started falling apart. I never stopped loving my parents or my game, but the passion was gone. Love can be present and still mean nothing, and that’s what happened to me. I had become stagnant, unchanging. Life had become routine. I had become all that I could be at that time, and I could find no reason to keep moving forward. Without growth, love cannot survive. I didn’t know it then, but what I needed was a new love, one that would regenerate my faith in myself and my life. One that would keep me moving forward. One that would give me a reason to start fighting again.  
  
  
And wonder of wonders, I found it.  
  
  
I love Shindou Hikaru. It took me a long time to realize that and come to terms with it, but I do. When I was at a crossroads in my life with no way to know where to turn or which path to take, he forcibly picked me up and carried me to a new crossroads, one in which there was only a single path to take. Shindou forced me to move again. All of a sudden, I had a new purpose in life. I had to chase after him. I had to discover his secrets and find out what made him tick. I know some people still claim I wanted to fight him in order to prove I was the best, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I never needed to be the best; I simply always had been, and through no fault of my own, really. If Shindou was honestly better than me, then more power to him. But the mystery, the absolute conundrum that was Shindou Hikaru, that I could not ignore. How could a boy my own age who openly admitted he’d never played Go before beat me so soundly? If it was a fluke, I had to know. If he had some innate, inborn talent, like a child protégé, then I had to know. If he was cheating, then I certainly had to know.  
  
  
As it turned out, none of those possibilities were the truth. If I had searched for a thousand years, I never would have come up with the correct answer. Oh, yes, I know the truth now. On a cold and rainy night, when we were stranded in our hotel room during an out-of-town game, I forced the answers from him. At that point, I think he was prepared to give them. But until that night, every time I thought I came up with a solution, I simply unraveled two more questions. It drove me completely insane. But it kept me moving.

  
Even today, Shindou aggravates me. He makes me angry in a way no one else can. I have the ability to remain calm and cool in the tensest of situations, and yet, five minutes in his presence is usually all it takes for him to blow my last fuse to smithereens. Every emotion I am capable of feeling seems to be tripled in size and intensity whenever I’m with him. Colors are sharper, sounds are clearer, touch is magnified. I gave up so much to chase him. I gave up my pride in the Kaiou Go Club, I gave up respect in the Go community by being known as the rival of a second-class Insei, and I gave up whatever shred of dignity I had by chasing him through the streets of Tokyo when he refused to play Go again.

 

  
But a loss against Shindou Hikaru is more exhilarating and more awe-inspiring than winning a title match, and for that, I love him.

  
For a long time, that love was enough to give my life more meaning and more intense pleasure than my other three loves combined. But in the last few days, ever since my first clumsy kiss was met with shock and surprise, I came to realize that I want more.

  
It’s not enough that I love him. I want him to love me in return.

  
And once again, I feel as though I’m at a crossroads. He hasn’t spoken to me since my failed attempt at intimacy, but every time I see him across a room, his face turns as red as a ripe tomato and he quickly turns away, and I can’t help but smile in satisfaction. If he truly hated me for it, he would have had no problem with shouting the fact at the top of his lungs, probably in some extremely public and extremely embarrassing place. After all, it’s not like arguing has ever been a problem for us.

  
For right now, I am content to wait. He can’t stay away from me for long. Our games are like life’s blood for me, and I know it’s the same for him. He needs his games against me like he needs oxygen, and sooner or later, when he’s on his last breath, he’ll come back to me, and I’ll breathe that life back into him. It’ll happen. I know it.

  
I love my mother, because she has always put my happiness before her own. I love my father, because he showed me what it meant to have a true passion in life. I love Go, because nothing in the world can compare to something that shrinks the universe down and allows you to rearrange it to your heart’s content. And I love Shindou Hikaru, because when none of my other loves meant a damn to me, he gave me a new reason to believe in the beauty of life.

  
My parents were mine by right of birth. Go was mine by right of hard work, practice, and sheer determination. Shindou… _Hikaru_ …will be mine by right of destiny.

  
Just wait and see.


End file.
